Morning Advantage: The Search for the Perfect Dating App
HBR.org 2013-03-01
There are a ton of dating apps on the market, but they all fail to please a pretty important demographic: women. The main issue for women, suggests Ann Friedman at the New Yorker’s Culture Desk blog, is a lack of control. Since men are more active users in dating apps, women are often bombarded with a high-volume of messages and requests. The consensus: it’s a lot of work to scroll through the list of e-suitors, and some of the messages are kind of creepy. Friedman says developers still have a lot of work to do because mobile dating is still a “weird” experience for many women. “And it’s likely to stay that way until a start-up comes along that manages to make mobile dating not weird by offering women — and the men they want to meet — control, incredible filters, and clarity of mission. Until then, [women are] left to scroll through page after page of unappealing options.”
The Health Benefits of Smiling (Wall Street Journal)
I tend to take the Rooney Mara, less-is-more approach to smiling — that is, I only smile when I really mean it. Well, it looks like a change in strategy may be in order. Smiling, it turns out, can reduce stress, at least according to new research published in Psychological Science. When participants smiled (the researchers asked them to hold a pair of chopsticks in their mouth), they reported feeling less stress after performing a difficult task. Why? There’s just something about smiling that makes our heart rates go down. But there’s a catch. Some experts believe that these effects only take place when a smile is the real deal. You have to mean it. No faking.
Why Are American Beers So Weak? (Slate)
Some angry beer drinkers, you may have heard, are suing Budweiser and Michelob for watering down their beers, which as everyone knows, are pretty weak to begin with. This begs two questions: why are the most popular American brews so light in alcohol content, and why do they dominate the market? Brian Palmer at Slate provides us with some clues, and he says “corporate trickery” and “market manipulation” have nothing to do with Big Beer’s success. Mild beers, you see, became popular in the 1800s as an alternative to whiskey (wince), and they “simply beat other styles of beer in the American market. Mass-marketed lagers were the first beers to truly catch on in the United States, and they have never relinquished that position.”
Finally! An Answer!
Why Cable Has So Many TV Channels You Never Watch (The Atlantic) 5 Workers Who Can Ruin Your Day (Inc.) Disappointed? Unhappy? Embrace Pessimism (National Post)